these very dear recruits who have never played in Lille

It was a year ago. Le Losc recorded the transfer of Victor Osimhen to Naples. The leaked amount (81 million euros, bonus included) made it a record for the club, just ahead of that of Nicolas Pépé at Arsenal in the summer of 2019 (80 million). A year, a change of management and a league title later, it turns out that this amount would rather be around 68 million euros. And again … This operation included four players who went the other way in the process: the young Italians Luigi Liguori, Claudio Manzi and Ciro Palmieri, as well as the Greek goalkeeper Orestis Karnezis.

No deal with Karnezis

This curious package was valued at 20 million euros, ten times the estimate of the specialized site Transfermarkt. The salary cost of this quartet was also 6 million euros over three years. Sums that Losc has already lost almost entirely. Immediately on loan, the three Italians barely played in the anonymity of the third transalpine division. They were supposed to come back up north this summer, but they never set foot there.

The new management, which arrived at the end of 2020 following the eviction of Gérard Lopez by the Elliott fund, preferred to leave them free; since then, Liguori has found a fourth echelon club in the Neapolitan suburbs. Lille would also like to part ways with Karnezis, 36, who played in one game last season, but no agreement has been reached.

At the end of the Osimhen operation, between these amounts and the various costs (including agent commissions), less than 10 million euros would have ended up in the Losc coffers. The only good news: the northern club will not have to pay percentages on the resales of these currencies.